Alternia Comics

Chapter 3

When Dahnni reached the desert, it was daybreak. The sun came up over the horizon on the boy's right as he stood at the edge of the desert. He stood there in the pinkish light, gazing at the rocks and the long shadows the new dawn made.

"How will I find them out there?" he asked himself. "I know the way they went," answered someone else.

Dahnni whirled around, his eyes darting about for the one who spoke. "Who said that?" he asked.

"I did." Dahnni looked up to see the bird he had played ball with the day he had met the tiger. "I will show you, too."

Dahnni smiled. "Thank you, bird. But why will you follow me into the desert? It is dangerous, as you said, especially for birds."

"You are a good friend," said the bird, "and your courage inspires me. Let me be the first of the birds to go into the desert and come back to sing of it!"

Dahnni nodded, and the pair stepped out into the desert. Dahnni followed the bird, who flew to the northwest. After several hours of walking, they reached a river, flowing slowly northeast.

"This is as far as I saw them go," said the bird.

Dahnni nodded, but he was thinking of other things. Neither had seen any sign of beetles or skeletons, and Dahnni was worried that they might spring on him and the bird at any moment.

"Fly high, bird, and see where our enemies may be." Dahnni sat with his back against a rock in the shade. "I will make some rice cakes for you and me."

The bird flew way up high, so high that Dahnni could only see a dark spot against the clouds. As he was up there, Dahnni made some rice cakes, putting in some cinnamon he kept in his pocket.

He heard some snuffling from the river bank, which cut down a short, steep slope to the water. Over the edge poked the head of a mole.

"Is that cinnamon I smell?" asked the mole. It peered about with its dark, tiny eyes.

Dahnni stood up. "Yes, it is," he said. He was wary of this mole, who lived where nothing but huge beetles and skeletons were supposed to roam.

"Oh, I love cinnamon! I haven't had a taste in years." The mole climbed over the edge of the bank, and started towards Dahnni. "You wouldn't mind if I had a little?"

"Well," said Dahnni, "I don't think so. We've a long journey ahead, and I only have this little bit."

"Please?" begged the mole, on his knees and holding his hands together in front of him. Dahnni almost laughed when he saw the mole's fat stomach almost touching the ground as he knelt down, but then remembered that it wasn't polite to make light of such things. "Oh, please? I can give you something in return. I have some food!"

"We don't need food. I brought plenty of rice, and I have a bow and arrows. But we are looking for someone who came this way." "Who? Who is it?" asked the mole.

Dahnni started to answer but stopped. This mole was polite, but the tiger had taught him that those who are desperate will try anything. And manners were not everything. He might lie and say that yes, he had seen them, just to get a bit of cinnamon. "Who have you seen?"

The mole thought. "Let's see now, I did see a pair of young men walking a ways from here, and before them the tiger came through here!"

"What tiger?" asked Dahnni.

"THE tiger," answered the mole. There was awe in his small voice. "Striped Fire. There is no mistaking that one. He just leapt right across to the other bank."

Dahnni looked over the wide river. Only his friend could have jumped so far. "Which way did he go?" asked Dahnni, waving some cinnamon before the mole's wet little nose.

"Ooooohhhhhhh....." the mole drooled. "He went north after crossing the river here. Oh, can I have the cinnamon now?"

Dahnni let the mole have the cinnamon, who snatched it and gobbled it up right away. "Oh, mmm, thank you, young boy. I certainly hope you find the tiger!"

The mole went back down behind the river bank. Dahnni smiled after him. So it was a nice mole after all. "Wait!" he called. "Because you were so nice with me, I'll let you have a rice cake!"

The mole shot back up as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. He grabbed up the rice cake Dahnni offered him, and bowing again and again said, "Thank you, oh thank you, young boy. Because you have been good to me, I will show you an easy way to cross the river."

Just then, the bird returned, huffing and puffing. Dahnni began to offer him a rice cake, but the bird shook his feathered head. "No time!" he said. "No time! At first I saw nothing, but then one of the rocks moved and I saw that it was really a beetle. They are following us, and there are too many to fight! We must run, now."

Dahnni turned to the mole. "Which is the way to cross the river?"

The mole just cowered in fear. "Oh, ooohhhh, the beetles! They will eat us for certain!"

"Not if we move, now!" said Dahnni. "Now how to cross the river?"

The mole shook his little nose and gathered his wits. "There, there is a ford a little to the north," he said. "But it is guarded by a skeleton. I would have told you to wait until night time and sneak past him, but now there is no time!"

Dahnni looked to the bird. "Well, my friend," he asked, "which fight do you prefer? One skeleton or a hundred beetles?"

The bird took wing and flew a deft circle about the boy and the mole. "The birds will sing of us for years! Let us take the skeleton!"

Dahnni and the bird started off to the north, but the mole called after them. "Wait! If I stay here, the beetles will surely eat me! Let me come with you, please."

"Gather your things and hurry," said Dahnni. We could use another companion, I am sure." The mole ducked down behind the river bank, and in a few moments returned with a bag on his back. Dahnni scooped up the mole when he saw how slow it was going and put him into his own pack. "Just don't eat my cinnamon!" he said with a laugh.

Soon, they had reached the ford, where the water slowed after going over a log set across the river. In the middle of the water stood a huge skeleton, over seven feet tall. In its bony hand was a knotted club. It paced back and forth in the slow moving water, leering with its bony mouth, looking this way and that with its empty eyes.

Dahnni and his friends crawled quietly along the river bank, high above the skeleton guard. Dahnni looked at the axe in his hand. It would do well against the hard bone, but the skeleton was huge. It would likely crush him before he could even get close.

Then Dahnni noticed something on the other bank. There was a tree, old and nearly dead, drinking from the river on its edge. Dahnni formed a plan. Taking the rope from his backpack, he tied each end to an arrow. He told his friends the plan as he did, and when he was ready, he nocked the arrow and stood.

The skeleton saw him right away, but before he could charge, Dahnni fired his arrow right past the skeleton and into the tree. He handed the other arrow to the bird and, taking his axe, charged down the bank.

The skeleton's bones clattered as it ran, it's bony mouth open in a silent battle cry. The bird flew right past him and to the tree, where he looped the rope around the branch and held on. Dahnni stopped at the bottom of the bank and waited. The rope pulled taught against the charging skeleton, and though it took him all his strength, the bird held on.

The skeleton fell smack into the river with a great splash. Dahnni leapt at it and smashed the skull with a whack of his axe. Then, to be sure, he chopped off both arms and both legs, then kicked the bones away to float down the river.

The bird cheered and chirruped, doing wheels and tricks in the air. "We have done it!" he sang. "We have done it! The birds will sing of this battle for ages to come!"

The mole, who was sitting on the bank in Dahnni's pack, spoke up. "Um, friends, the beetles are here." Dahnni and the bird looked up the bank, and though they could not see them over it, they heard the beetle's chattering and clicking and knew it was time to go.

The bird untied the rope and pulled out the arrow while Dahnni ran up the bank to grab the mole and his pack. When he crested it, he saw the beetles. They covered the horizon. Nothing else could be seen but the blue sky. They chattered their mandibles and clicked their legs as they ran at the river with terrifying speed. Dahnni's eyes opened wide, and his mouth grew slack from fear. A cry from the mole brought him to his senses, and he saw that the lead beetle was almost on top of them.

Its horrid mandibles snapped shut right where Dahnni's head had been a moment ago. He took his axe and smashed the thing's head, then ran down the bank ahead of the rolling, dead beetle to dodge its dark, plated bulk as it hit the water with a huge splash. He ran across the water, splashing his legs high so the water would not slow him, and he made it to the other side just as the first of the live beetle made it to the ford.

Dahnni was climbing the bank when he slipped and slid down to land against the log. "Come on!" said the bird. "Hurry! They are nearly upon you."

Dahnni looked back to see that the beetles were halfway across the river. He started up again, but got another idea as he put his foot against the log. Getting down in the water, Dahnni pulled on the log, trying to dislodge it. But it was too heavy, and it would hardly budge. "Mole," he cried, "help me!"

The mole looked at the log, barely moving against the boy's strength. The mole knew he was not strong, and could not hope to help much. But then he glimpsed the dirt beneath the water, holding the log steady. Though not strong, the mole knew dirt, and knew how to dig. He jumped out of the pack and into the water, and began to dig away at the earth holding the log in place. The log began to loosen, and Dahnni felt it give way.

The bird saw the beetles were nearly to his friends. He saw what his friends were doing, and knew it would work if they had only a bit more time. He took wing and flew down right in front of the first beetle, chirruping his warcry. The beetle's head followed the bird, and it stopped where it was in the water. The one behind it ran into it, and fell face first into the water. It was swept away down the river by the strengthened current.

The bird flew over to the bank and picked up one of the arrows in its claws. Chirruping his warcry again, he dived down at the lead beetle again and rammed the arrow into its face. The beetle fell, and so did the one behind it. Like their companion, the two beetles were swept away.

Finally, the log began to give way. Picking up the mole, Dahnni crawled up onto the bank so he would not be pulled away. He called the bird away from the fight and waited for the beetles to get near him. Then, he gave the log one last kick, and it swung out like a broom, sweeping all the beetles away and into the water as the powerful river pushed through the way that was once barred. On the bank, Dahnni, the bird, and the mole all cheered. They laughed at the beetles on the opposite bank who jumped in after them and were taken with their friends by the river's mighty current.

"They will sing of us forever!" cried the bird. "They will sing of us forever!"

Dahnni smiled and laughed once more at the beetles, once so terrifying and now so very pathetic. He climbed up the bank with the mole on his back.

"Ha HA!" cried the mole. "Not so little now, am I? You big buggy bullies, I showed you to mess with a mole! That will make you think twice next time you feel like mole soup!" They got to the top of the bank, and still the mole jeered at the beetles, waving his paws and sticking out his little pink tongue. "NYAH!"

While Dahnni squeezed out his clothes and the bird ate a rice cake, the mole came up with a little rhyme.

"Mr. Beetle wanted to eat-le, but then he met up with a mole.

The mole gave a push and the bug got gooshed!

They'll never come near his hole,

Again, no they'll never come near his hole! Ha HAH!"

Dahnni laughed so hard his sides were sore, and the bird spat out his latest mouthful of rice cake to laugh with him. The mole grinned and said, "That was the best time I've had in my life! I'm glad I got out of my hole." They camped there by the river with the beetles still chattering and clacking away on the other bank. Dahnni filled a water skin from the river and made a fire with the wood from the tree. They sat around the fire and told stories before going to sleep.